Hello, I'm Professor Dr. Mustafa Zülküf Altan
Biography
Keynote Address:
SAVING TEACHING FROM AI OVERLOAD: Transforming University Learning for an Age of Generative AI.
We have already entered a moment in the history of education when a machine can write an essay, solve a problem, generate code, summarize a book, and produce an answer before a student has even had time to struggle with the question. The promise is enormous. So is the challenge. The question facing universities is no longer simply how to teach in the age of artificial intelligence rather, it is what is worth teaching when machines can do so much of the work for us?
This keynote argues that the greatest threat of AI to higher education is not technological replacement, but the gradual replacement of learning with convenience. If we are not careful, students may become increasingly skilled at producing answers while becoming less experienced in the difficult human work of thinking, questioning, creating, judging, listening, and taking responsibility.
Universities therefore need more than AI policies. They need a renewed educational purpose. Teaching must move beyond content delivery toward the cultivation of human capabilities that cannot simply be outsourced: judgement, curiosity, dialogue, disciplinary reasoning, practical wisdom, intellectual identity, and ethical responsibility. Assessment, too, must be redesigned to reveal how students think, make decisions, revise ideas, and perform in authentic contexts and not merely what an AI system can help them produce.
This is not a call for a university without AI. It is a call for a university with a stronger human center: one where students learn when to use intelligent machines, when to question them, and when to put them aside and think for themselves.
AI can change the tools of education but it must not decide its purpose.
Email: altanmz@erciyes.edu.tr